Why should anyone have to pity a talented artist who’s been employed as such for over a decade? Because he’s in the grips of an ugly self indulgence and his indulgence is anything but a mere self indulgence.

Everyone reading this likely has at least one self indulgence. Maybe it’s chocolate. Maybe it’s fatty food. Maybe it’s gambling. Maybe it’s alcohol, pot, etc, but there’s a difference between a purely self indulgence and one where the indulgence can negatively impact others. For instance, we have laws against driving under the influence and for good reason. Just last month a cop was killed in Philly by a drunk driver. There’s having a drink or two in the privacy of your own home and then there’s hitting the road inebriated and putting others’ lives at risk. There’s having a friendly wager and then gambling your family’s savings away.

Nick’s indulgence is faith, some form of Christianity. Now like other indulgences, as long as its merely a personal self indulgence there’s no need for concern. Yeah, you can argue that self harm is worth concern but I think everyone should have the freedom to be self destructive if that’s their choice, provided it doesn’t adversely affect others. Lots of people are comforted by religious beliefs, a good stiff drink, what have you. To each their own I say, but just don’t let it negatively affect others. Nick, sadly, can’t keep his indulgence to himself.

Here is a “gift” from Nick on his blog, a very nice model. However, it’s not entirely a gift because he uses it as a tool to proselytize. In fact, he uses his entire blog for that purpose. What computer graphics and faith indulgence have in common, I don’t know. It’s as disparate as talking about politics, food, sports or anything else non-CG in a CG context, but the issue is bigger than just an oddly superfluous addition to a CG blog. The issue is using the CG blog as a vehicle, a mask if you will, for proselytizing and the negative impact of doing that.

Where do I begin? First of all, even for those apathetic towards religion it comes off as, at best, odd and at worst, a turn off. It risks alienating people who otherwise might participate more on the blog or seek collaborations. Should he find himself out of work (CG business are going tits up and/or outsourcing more and more these days), such a reputation for being unable to divorce his self indulgence from his work may hurt his employment opportunities. Talent alone can’t always save you. The nature of CG work is very long hours working in close proximity with others. Perhaps it shouldn’t but one’s personality, specifically their ability to get along with others, plays an important part in hiring. If you can’t divorce your indulgences from your work, that’s problematic. It’s far worse when that indulgence impacts your behavior to the point where you become angry, bitter, manipulative, vindictive and confrontational. If you scroll through the comments in the link above, you see that happening.

Some who indulge in religion happily can indulge without a care what others think or whether others indulge as well or not. The satisfaction they get from their indulgence is not dependent upon others, and they certainly don’t need to affect others in order to maximize the satisfaction they get from their indulgence. Nick is not one of these people. He, unfortunately, is the type who needs others to indulge with him and to buy into the delusions of his indulgence. For some reason, his type can’t get full satisfaction from their indulgence if others aren’t indulging as well, ESPECIALLY if there are those who openly refuse to indulge and even criticize the indulgence, thus he must taint his CG blog with Christian proselytizing, but it gets worse. This unfortunate condition then compels him to lash out at others. I find this pitiful.

Also pitiful is how in order to maintain full satisfaction from his delusional indulgence, he must reframe the reality of others’ objections to his actions and his indulgence to satisfy the “reality” of his delusional indulgence. For instance, atheists aren’t atheists because there’s no evidence for a god but rather they’re “angry with God”. Anger at his god and other believers must be a character flaw stemming from some bad past. Atheism is a religion, too. And of course as we’ve seen countless times before with indulger blogs like those of Christian indulgers, Nick must censor opposition comments. Pitiful.

I must repeat at this time that I don’t care what people indulge in, as long as their indulgences don’t affect others. Nick can’t help negatively affecting others as a result of his indulgence, and for that I pity him.

I scanned the comments, but didn't read them in any depth. I got the gist of it.

There is both arrogance and insecurity in his proselytizing while trying to "give away" his free gift of his GC model along with "the Word".

The arrogance is is the assumption that if only people could see and know what he knows, they would be as good, or smart, or lucky as him. The assumption behind that is that at present, they aren't. Whatever they currently believe or don't believe is somehow less worthy, and only he has the truth. Everyone who doesn't agree is working with falsehoods. That's a common attitude in Christians, and Muslims, I've noticed. And it's arrogant.

The insecurity comes from what I can only suspect, but it makes sense. Deep down, somewhere in the rational recesses of his mind, those recesses that he has had to repress in order to believe what he believes, what he says explicitly doesn't jive, doesn't fit, with everything else he believes. It can't, if rationally looked at, but he doesn't use reason to come to those beliefs, so his rational mind is in conflict with his irrational beliefs. And the best way to quiet those nagging doubts? Get others to believe. If everyone believed what he did, there would be no one to call him on it, no one to say "hey, that's stupid". So he proselytizes.

In my experience, artists are susceptible to self indulgence, especially woo. The creative process is a fickle, mysterious thing. Sometimes an artist needs to believe his creativity is coming from some magical place, and that he/she must protect and maintain the flow of that magic. I wouldn't be surprised if that has something to do with it here, so subsequently atheist objections are threats to the flow of his creativity.

Ultimately yes, it's insecurity. An indulger who doesn't give a shit what others say or do is secure and comfortable with himself and his indulgences.

My name is on the infamous blog Nick keeps referring to, so the accusation that I'm not showing backbone and hiding behind an anonymous tag is demonstrably false.

What he actually was trying to do was see what contributions to CG I've made, as if that was relevant to the discussion. It wasn't, and still isn't. Nick was uncomfortable with my questions, so he needed to an excuse to delete me.

I'm assuming this won't appear, but you'll see it, Nick. Oh, and anyone going to my blog will see it as well.

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